Sunday, September 26, 1999 Published at 16:39 GMT 17:39 UKBusiness: The EconomyBrown aims for jobs for allChancellor Brown: full employment comes before a spending spreeChancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown aims for jobs for all in the next decade.

"My aim for the next decade for Britain is nothing less than full employment
in the next century," Chancellor Brown said in an interview with the Observer newspaper.

But he says this hinges on the government not giving in to demands for extra spending and large pay increases.

"Irresponsibility on pay will lead directly to higher interest rates and fewer jobs. What I am talking about demands responsibility not just on the shopfloor but in the boardroom. " Chancellor Brown said.

Already, unemployment is at a 19-year low of 1.12m, while inflation is at a 36-year historic low. Pressure has increased on the Labour government to relax its spending plans since reports of a £12bn surplus this year began to circulate.

Chancellor Brown dismissed these reports of a Labour "war chest" and said there would be no relaxation of Labour's financial prudence.

He said: "I am not going to make the same mistakes as Nigel Lawson. Sitting
in this very same office in 1988, he thought and imagined he had a huge set of
revenues that he could spend at will.

"It was only later that he discovered these revenues either did not exist or
had not been earned."